California

Former California Virtual Academies student Elizabeth Novak-Galloway, 12, watches TV in her San Francisco home on Feb. 18, 2016.

K12 Inc. wasn’t pleased when it learned in June that California’s top education official had enlisted the state’s highest ranking accountant to conduct a sweeping audit of its profitable but low-performing network of online schools.
At the time, company spokesman Mike Kraft suggested the audit wasn’t needed and that K12’s track record in the Golden State had been misrepresented through a spate of “unfair and biased reporting.” His comments came two months after this newspaper published a two-part investigative series on the Wall Street-traded Virginia company, which reaps tens of millions of dollars annually in state funding while graduating fewer than half of its high school students.
But in the weeks after the Controller’s office launched the audit, which it expects to complete and publish next spring, the company did something unusual — it lobbied the Controller’s office about the audit, according to a form it filed in late July with the Secretary of State’s office. Continue Reading →

A little-noticed decision by the California Supreme Court in a lawsuit involving Martins Beach could make life more difficult for the property owner, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, in his long-running legal battle to keep the public off his coastal land.

And it delivers the latest repudiation to San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Gerald Buchwald, whose head-scratching 2014 ruling in the suit, brought by group of surfers calling themselves Friends of Martins Beach, now essentially has been wiped from the face of the Earth.

On July 20, the state high court ordered the depublication of an April ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco in the Friends case, meaning the opinion will not appear in the appellate court’s official reports and may no longer be cited as precedent in other cases. The arcane judicial decree came without explanation. Continue Reading →

You no doubt read that President Barack Obama paid his first visit to Lake Tahoe to promote his environmental agenda last week. And it’s a pity that some of the best stuff didn’t make the pool and wire service reports.

Obama spoke at Harvey’s Outdoor Amphitheatre in Stateline, Nevada, where he was joined by Democratic colleagues including California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Jerry Brown, as well as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

The President, who hails from Chicago, remarked that the deep blue lake was “really nice” and that he plans to return after leaving office, though “my transportation won’t be as nice” as he will no longer be able to helicopter in on Marine One.

Obama then noted that much of the 1974 sequel The Godfather: Part II, which he called “maybe my favorite movie,” was filmed at Lake Tahoe.

Chris Stampolis finally got some cheers from his opponents — colleagues, parents and employees he oversees as trustee of the Santa Clara Unified School District — for deciding not to run for re-election.

Ending his tenure might be the most widely hailed decision Stampolis, 50, has made in four contentious years on the board.

“I am pleased that he has realized that he is not suited to be a trustee of our school district and is not running for re-election,” wrote board member Jodi Muirhead in an email.

Last year, the tiny school serving close to 100 Bay Area students won an unprecedented victory when it convinced members of the State Board of Education to ignore their staff’s wishes and renew its charter for another five years.

It was the first time the board had rejected such a recommendation since California’s first charter school opened 25 years ago.

But in recent weeks, the board’s members, including President Michael Kirst, suddenly acknowledged the laundry list of serious problems documented by California Department of Education staff and in a stunning reversal, made plans to close SF Flex.

Those problems include failure to manage its finances, failure to focus on academics and failure to hold public meetings or publicly post agendas and minutes, a violation of the Ralph M. Brown Act, according to state education records. Continue Reading →

Two state Senate races that were billed as clashes of Democratic titans — or at least Democratic officeholders — turned out to be even more thorough routs than the final primary election results indicated.
In the South Bay’s 15th Senate District, recently released precinct-by-precinct returns show that State Sen Jim Beall, D-San Jose, bested Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose, just about everywhere outside of Campos’ East San Jose stronghold. He didn’t lose a precinct in Campbell, Saratoga, Cupertino or Los Gatos en route to a 22.5 percentage-point victory in which he finished 49.4 percent to her 26.9 percent. Republican Chuck Page was edged out of the running with 20.6 percent and another GOP contender, Anthony Macias, trailed with just 3.1 percent. Continue Reading →

There’s been some staff changes at the Rep. Mike Honda campaign headquarters, with a short-term field director leaving as well as two top money raisers in the closely watched race against Fremont attorney Ro Khanna, who unexpectedly beat the incumbent in the primary.
Sources confirmed that field director Andrew Munson is out, along with finance director Sudip Dutta — who had been with Honda for two and a half years — and deputy finance director Nicole Nabulsi.
Honda spokesman Vedant Patel said the departures have nothing to do with the results of the primary election. Political analysts have said Honda faces a tough track ahead if he wants to keep the 17th District seat he has held for eight terms, and are watching to see what kind of cash is coming in when disclosure reports are due mid July. In 2014, when Khanna placed 20 percentage points behind Honda in the primary instead of a couple points ahead, Honda saw a surge of monetary support and he could greatly benefit from such help in this year’s repeat. Continue Reading →

Comments Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom made on Facebook about the National Rifle Association have him in hot water with one of his biggest political allies — the LGBTQ community.

On Monday, Newsom posted a message accusing the NRA of unfairly using a transgender woman to fight the Safety for All Act, a “common sense” ballot initiative he’s sponsoring to place new restrictions on gun owners.

He shared a photo of Nicki Stallard from Fresno that quotes her saying, “If Gavin Newsom gets this passed, how will transgender women like me be able to protect ourselves?” and added this commentary about the gun advocacy group:

“Using the Trans community to fight their battle of lies is arguably one of the most disgusting things they’ve ever done.”

But Stallard insists she’s not a shill for the NRA. She’s a trans, gun-loving member of Pink Pistols, a national gun advocacy organization that teaches shooting and encourages LGBTQ people to carry.

There are few Bay Area jobs more precarious than Republican politician. And Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, the region’s only GOP lawmaker in Sacramento, knows knows she’s in for an even tougher re-election fight now that Donald Trump is the snarling face of her party.

“I know there is a possibility there will be drag,” said Baker a first-term incumbent from Dublin, who is facing off with former Pleasanton councilwoman Cheryl Cook-Kallio.

Baker said she had supported Ohio Gov. John Kasich for President, and doesn’t know who she’ll back in November.

“I have not been able to imagine a scenario in which I would be voting for Donald Trump,” Baker said. “I disagree with him on so many things.” But she has no intention of voting for Hillary Clinton either.

Trump is bad news for Baker, because he could depress Republican turnout and energize Democrats in the district that covers Alameda County’s Tri-Valley region and several wealthy Contra Costa towns including Danville, Orinda and San Ramon.

The district previously was represented by Joan Buchanan, a Democrat. Earlier this year, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon labeled it as the Democrat’s “top pick-up opportunity.”

Baker, a moderate, said she’s counting on voters turned off by Trump to still give her a fair hearing. “This is a very thoughtful electorate,” she said. “They don’t blindly vote the party line.”

Assemblywoman Nora Campos and state Sen. Jim Beall had their first election year tiff this week – over a poll Campos commissioned before deciding to challenge her fellow San Jose Democrat for his Senate seat.

Campos’ campaign touted the survey it commissioned finding that she had an 8 percentage point lead after recipients were told information about both candidates.

Superintendent Wendy Gudalewicz of the Cupertino School District made headlines, and enemies, last June when she uprooted the entire staff of West Valley Elementary in Sunnyvale. She claimed “tensions” and problems with the high-performing school’s culture forced her to transfer out everyone — down to the janitor and the lunch lady.

Wendy Gudalewicz

That abrupt and wholesale move clearly has added to dissatisfaction with Gudalewicz, now in her fourth year at the high-performing district’s helm. The teachers union on Tuesday released results of a member survey showing strong disapproval of the superintendent and school board.

“It’s very obvious that we have a lot of teachers who are disgruntled, overworked and unhappy over a lack of transparency,” union President Dave Villafana said of the survey, returned by nearly four-fifths of the association’s 940 members.

Plans unveiled last month to build the first stretch of bullet train track between Silicon Valley and the Central Valley have understandably angered Southern California Democrats.

The authority tasked with building the $64 billion San Francisco-to-Los Angeles rail line had promised to start construction in their region, but it said it had to scrap those plans because of concerns about costs.

Surprisingly, even some Southern California Republicans who oppose the project and wish to see it cancelled are fighting mad about the new San Jose-first strategy, and one has introduced legislation to redirect some of the bullet train’s money away from the bay.

Insisting that cap-and-trade funding once dedicated to Los Angeles-Area construction of the rail line shouldn’t be spent up north, Assemblyman David Hadley unveiled a bill this week that would give $600 million in bullet train money to local SoCal transit projects.

“The decision to build the northern California route breaks the promise made to Southern California taxpayers,” said Hadley, R-Torrance. “My legislation will ensure that cap and trade dollars go to the disadvantaged communities they are meant to help.”

But in a Legislature controlled by Democrats who still support the project, Hadley’s proposal may not have any legs.

And Annie Parker, a spokeswoman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said Hadley’s claim that the funding in question must be spent in the area of the state he represents is “erroneous.”

“The Authority is moving forward to build and operate the high-speed rail program in accordance with all laws and requirements, including benefiting disadvantaged communities throughout California,” Parker said.